HARTFORD >> Republicans who picked up eight seats in the House and three in the Senate in 2016 are still asking to be part of discussions as the General Assembly heads into extra innings to debate the two-year, $5.1 billion budget deficit.

If a budget deal isn’t reached by June 30, then by law Gov. Dannel P. Malloy will run the government through executive order beginning July 1.

At a post-mortem press conference Thursday, House Minority Leader Themis Klarides, R-Derby, admitted that Republicans have their eyes on 2018, but that doesn’t mean they won’t work with Democrats to try to come up with a budget during the upcoming special session.

House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz, D-Berlin, has accused Klarides of playing politics because she has talked about growing her party in 2018. He has said that stating that it is their objective to gain seats is “an obscene political statement” in the context of trying to come to agreement on various bills before the General Assembly.

However, if Republicans aren’t going to work on a budget compromise then “I can’t wait until we do the elections in 2018,” he said Republicans have “essentially lied to the voters of the state of Connecticut and said they wanted a seat at the table, they wanted to negotiate and they were willing to make tough decisions.”

At the same time, Klarides and her party could try and convince their Democratic colleagues to vote for the Republican budget proposal. All they would need is four votes.

Democrats have said the Republican Party wants to become the majority, but they can’t do that by voting “no” on everything and not taking any responsibility.

“We are creatures of elections. It is a natural thought process,” Klarides said. “But we can’t do that any more. We have to be willing to put our money where our mouth is and make the difficult decisions.”